Seibu sells Yokohama Prince Hotel

20th Mar 2006

Seibu Holdings Inc. has finalized plans to sell the Yokohama Prince Hotel to Nomura Holdings Inc. affiliate Unified Partners Ltd., The Nihon Keizai Shimbun has learned.
Unified Partners, an investment and lending unit of Nomura Holdings, was granted preferential negotiating rights to the property among several prospective buyers. The sale, with an expected price tag of around 15 billion yen, will be made official as early as next week.

The Yokohama Prince Hotel, a 441-room facility opened in 1990, will cease operations at the end of June. Unified Partners is then expected redevelop the 112,000 sq. meter property for condominiums.

The Seibu group has sought to shed unprofitable holdings as part of efforts to pay off debt and rebuild business operations. Last August, it outlined plans to sell the Makuhari and Yokohama Prince hotels. Faced with the opening of rival hotels and hampered by its remote location, the Yokohama Prince Hotel’s average occupancy rate had slumped to around 60 per cent for the past several years.

The sale of the Makuhari Prince Hotel to hotel and condominium developer APA Group was hammered out in December. ——-